Renewable sources of chemicals are of increasing importance. They are a means of reducing dependence on imported oil for conversion to plastic precursors and provide a substitute for basic chemical precursors. Renewable resources can provide for basic chemical constituents to be used in many industries, such as chemical monomers for the making of plastics, and biomass is a renewable resource that can provide some of the needs for sources of chemicals and fuels.
Biomass includes, but is not limited to, plant parts, fruits, vegetables, plant processing waste, wood chips, chaff, grain, grasses, corn, corn husks, weeds, aquatic plants, hay, paper, paper products, recycled paper and paper products, and any cellulose containing biological material or material of biological origin. The economics depend on the ability to produce large amounts of biomass on marginal land, by increasing the yield per acre, or in a water environment where there are few or no other significantly competing economic uses of that land or water environment. Increasing the yield per acre can mean increasing the recovery of useful chemicals from the biomass, as opposed to increasing the growth of biomass per acre. The economics can also depend on the disposal of biomass that would normally be placed in a landfill.
The growing, harvesting and processing of biomass in a water environment provides a space where there is plenty of sunlight and nutrients while not detracting from more productive alternate uses. In addition, biomass contributes to the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as the biomass grows. The use of biomass can be one process for recycling atmospheric carbon while producing fuels and chemical precursors.
An important component of biomass is the lignin present in the solid portions of the biomass. The lignin comprises chains of aromatic and oxygenate constituents forming larger molecules that are not easily treated. A major reason for difficulty in treating the lignin is the inability to disperse the lignin for contact with catalysts that can break the lignin down.